stand up (and fight)
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: Astoria Greengrass doesn't want a soulmate. Especially not Draco Malfoy. And yet. And yet...


Written for Hogwarts' Romance Awareness, Day 6: you feel everything your soulmate does, Writing Club: Character Appreciation 17. Word: Apology, Disney Challenge: C5 Winnifred Banks - write about a woman in power, or a woman who is fighting for power, Cookies' Crafty Corner: Needles: Write a het pairing, Book Club: Aunt Lydia: (colour) dark green, (word) scoff, (word) punishment, Showtime: 4 - Hasa Diga Eebowai - (word) Blasphemy, Amber's Attic: Tattoo 2. Loved One's Name: Write about someone important to your main character, Count Your Buttons: W1: accident, Lyric Alley 13: I am who I'm meant to be, Ami's Audio Admirations: Top 40 Singles — Write a fic where the main theme is not about romance, Em's Emporium 6: Lin (Marvelgeek42): write a story set in Hogwarts, Lo's Lowdown: Quote 5: "Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson, Bex's Bazaar: Other Elephants In Pop Culture 2: Colonel Hathi - write about either of the wizarding wars, for Auction: (color) dark green.

For Prompt of the Day: (word) lies, Seasonal Challenges: Days of the Year: July 3 2018: Disobedience Day - write about someone being disobedient, Shay's Musical Challenge: Les Mis - write about students fighting a war, Gryffindor Themed Prompts: (character) Ginny Weasley.

For the MOS - tassy0928: Draco Malfoy/Astoria Greengrass, Romance, (word) marked.

 _Word count:_ 1558

* * *

Truth is, Astoria has known who her soulmate is since she was eleven. A sudden, violent pain in her forearm, like somebody had taken knives to it, is kind of hard to ignore, after all.

Even harder to ignore had been Draco Malfoy's reaction to that wound.

She remembers it like it was yesterday. She had been in the Common Room, working on a Transfiguration essay, when suddenly everything had gone wrong. It had felt like the world had stopped, just for one instant — and then the pain had hit, sharp and biting and terrifying because Astoria hadn't known what was happening.

And then, as quickly as it had come, the pain had vanished.

She had knocked dark green ink all over her parchment in her panic, and luckily, somehow, that was all anyone remembered of that scene.

She had excused her cry of pain with claims of cramping, and some older students, familiar with that themselves, had even given her a few tips to help.

Hiding hadn't been intentional then. Not at first.

Not until she had heard about Malfoy's accident and put the pieces together.

Because she doesn't want to be Malfoy's soulmate. It's nothing short of blasphemy, this kind of rejection, but she hadn't wanted to then, when he was thirteen and spiteful, and she doesn't want to now, when he's seventeen and an idiot who can't seem to ever think for himself.

She can't have a soulmate who thinks being marked is an accomplishment, something to be proud of.

(It's only rumors floating around the Common Room, of course, but Astoria _knows_.

She remembers being woken up in the middle of the summer, her wrist burning with a fire she couldn't see, and she remembers _knowing_ _what it meant_.

She thinks she hated him a little then.)

She feels it now, every time his Mark hurts. Every time he's summoned, or brought to task, or punished — or whatever it is that the Dark Lord feels he needs to use the Mark for. It's terrifying, because she _knows_ he's up to something, and yet there is nothing she can do.

She can't help him. She doesn't want to — or rather, she doesn't want to have anything to do with whatever it is that the Dark Lord is making him do.

Because Malfoy — _Draco_ , since keeping her distance isn't quite working as it used to when she can feel his anguish in the far-off corner of her mind at every single moment of every single day — she does want to help.

But she doesn't know how to without telling him that she's his soulmate — and that, she won't do. It would be all over the school in a matter of days, and then it will be all everyone will think about when they look at her: Astoria Greengrass, Draco Malfoy's soulmate, as though a girl couldn't be anything more than somebody's soulmate.

So she watches and she waits, hoping that eventually, an opportunity to do _something_ will come up.

But it doesn't.

Meanwhile, Draco spirals downward. His skin gets paler and paler, dark bruises etching themselves underneath his eyes like he hasn't slept in weeks.

He hasn't. At least, not properly. Astoria can feel his restlessness, his panic. It is a tangible thing itching at the back of her mind.

Still, she does nothing.

She only hopes she won't regret it — or at least, not regret it more than she already does — but it's a fool's hope at best, and Astoria has never been a fool.

.

The thing is, Astoria doesn't like Muggles — not any more than she dislikes them, anyway.

They just don't really register to her, and she doesn't understand why or how some people want to go out of their way to torture or kill them. Where is the gain in that? What purpose does that serve?

And maybe Muggleborns don't know to respect their culture, but doesn't that just make it their duty to teach them better?

(Because the idea that they steal magic is so ridiculously stupid it sickens her to know that some people actually believe it.)

It hurts, when she lets herself think about it, that the person magic itself has decided completes her soul doesn't understand any of this.

.

Daphne corners her before they get on the Hogwarts Express. She looks scared, and that's how Astoria really knows it will be bad — Daphne never looks anything but cool and collected.

"Just… Be careful this year, alright?" she says, and Astoria scoffs back.

"I will do what I have to do," she replies, and when she crosses her arms she pointedly doesn't think about how it feels like her wrist still aches where Draco's mark is, and how last year she did nothing and as punishment, her mind gave her nightmares.

She can't stand by and do nothing again. She can't.

"Be careful," Daphne repeats. "Please." her eyes are sad and begging, and she squeezes Astoria's hand once before she leaves to find her friends.

"I'm always careful." And that is true, but it is also what got her into this mess in the first place. Being careful is why she didn't say anything to Draco last year, didn't even try to find out what was up with him even though she knew he was hurting, and she can't do it again.

She just can't.

The next day, she sits next to a chatty Gryffindor girl in her Potions class, and gives her a note to pass on to the Weasley girl.

This, she knows, is how she starts to make amends.

.

Draco isn't here this year, and the only thing that lets her know he's still alive is the pain she can feel coming from him at intervals too regular to be anything but torture.

It makes it very hard to keep on ignoring him, or hating him the way Astoria sometimes wishes she could.

But she can't, and she hasn't. Not since last year and she witnessed him go silent and tight-lipped whenever somebody commented on the war or the Dark Lord or Muggleborns, anything where before he'd have only been too happy to speak about.

Not since she felt him fall apart in her mind and did nothing.

She finds herself thinking of him more, wondering how he's doing, _what_ he's doing.

She thinks _at_ him too, sending encouragements she knows he will never get and sharing her fear and excitement every time she sneaks out into the night to help the prisoners the Carrows keep under the guise of detention.

It helps. She doesn't know why, or how, but it helps.

And little by little, she starts… hoping. It's ridiculous, and probably fruitless, but she starts hoping that they'll meet again, that the war will end, that he'll be better.

Somehow, Draco sneaked up on her. She tried so hard not to care, spent years denying it, even to herself, and yet she ended up there anyway, halfway through falling in love with a soulmate who probably doesn't even know she exists.

It isn't fair — but then again, nothing about any of this has ever been fair.

She'll just have to make do.

.

She doesn't even notice she's taken to rubbing her arm — her wrist, where Draco's mark is — until the Weasley girl (Ginny) draws attention to it.

"Hiding anything?" she asks, and her tone may be casual but her eyes are sharp and suspicious.

Astoria's hand falls to the side. Her mouth goes dry. "It's not mine," she says, and the words almost stick to her throat.

This is the closest she's ever come to telling anyone she even has a soulmate.

Ginny nods and her brown eyes soften. "Yeah, I know what that's like."

Astoria blinks and tries not to gape. She doesn't ask, but she remembers how close Ginny and Potter had been rumored to be getting last year, and how Ginny sometimes still winces like she has a headache.

It makes a lot of sense.

"Do you…?" Ginny continues before cutting herself off, as though she only just realizes that any further question might not be welcome.

Astoria bites her cheek and shakes her head. "I don't know who they are," she lies.

Ginny stares at her for a while, and she seems relieved when Astoria doesn't say anything else.

She doesn't ask anything else about Astoria's soulmate.

.

 _("I hated you, you know?" Astoria confesses one night._

 _Draco laughs, and his breath tickles her neck. "I know. You weren't exactly being discreet about it — but I guess I kind of did deserve it."_

 _Astoria hums in agreement, fingers playing on his chest teasingly. "Only kind of?"_

" _Maybe a lot." His laughter dies down as he sobers up. "I'm sorry."_

 _Astoria raises her head, frowning. "What for?"_

" _For everything — for being so stupid it took you years to admit we were soulmates and even longer to find me, for the pain…"_

 _Astoria silences his apology by digging a finger in his side, ignoring the dull ache that springs up in response in her own side. "Hey, I love you. That means I forgave you a long time ago."_

 _Draco's answering smile was like sunshine after the rain. "I love you too.")_


End file.
